marți, 24 aprilie 2012

thinking OWL

Through
pop culture references, like Winnie the Pooh, and through folklore, we
all associate owls with wisdom at some time or other. Rather than
intellectual wisdom, though, owls are connected with the wisdom of the
soul.

However,
there are other qualities that owl has. Owls are often seen as
mysterious, mostly because many owls are strictly nocturnal and humans
have always found night to be full of mystery and the unknown. Owls
live within the darkness, which includes magic, mystery, and ancient
knowledge. Related to the night is the moon, which owls are also
connected to. It becomes a symbol of the feminine and fertility, with
the moon’s cycles of renewal.

Even the mythology relates owl to
this wisdom and femininity. The owl was a symbol for Athena, goddess
of wisdom and strategy, before the Greeks gave their pantheon human
forms. According to myth, an owl sat on Athena’s blind side, so that
she could see the whole truth. In Ancient Greece, the owl was a symbol
of a higher wisdom, and it was also a guardian of the Acropolis.
Diana, the Roman response to Athena, was strongly associated with the
moon, and also the owl. The Pawnee and the Sioux saw the owl as a
messenger (akicita) to the first of all evil creatures (Unktehi).
While the Lakota tribe had an “Owl Society,” where the warriors fought
primarily at night and painted dark rings around their eyes because they
believed that would allow them to have an owl’s acute vision.

There are many superstitions surrounding the owl, many of which focus
on death. In Europe and America, owl was seen as a harbinger of death.
This was due to certain peoples, like the Dakota, and some Germanic
tribes and Scandinavian Vikings, who would signal the approach of attack
with the hoot of an owl. This was and still remains the easiest bird
call to imitate. The Mayans called the screech owl of the Yucatan “the
moan bird,” and believed that it meant death.

There are myths
and legends from all over the world, from the Americas to the Far
East. Owls, as they always have, continue to be a source of wisdom,
spiritual and intellectual.Information from Ted Andrews's Animal-Speak, Jessica Dawn Palmer's Animal Wisdom, and Steven D. Farmer's Power Animals.